Gatwick Express Gets People Off

10-16 Maltravers Street, London, Greater London WC2R 3EE, UK

In the back of a black taxi in London the other day and almost fell off the seat with laughter from a very clever and hilarious ad for Gatwick Express. The photo below says it all - love it!

Intel and Vice Celebrate and Spotlight New Inspiration

Just came across a very cool new home for inspiration called The Creators Project. This is a mash-up of a modern day media channel that celebrates the work of visionary artists around the world combined with a content creation studio. The current spotlight on the site is on artist Muti Randolph – who takes a look at how art, light, sound, design, architecture and digital projections can come together to create amazing installations. Go beyond Muti and your brain will start to hurt as it tries to cram in all of the new thinking.

One of the most interesting parts of the site is connected to its sponsors - a traditional tech brand (Intel) has partnered with a youth culture brand (Vice) to bring the fun our way. An unlikely yet somehow fitting partnership. You can see by looking at the creators that they tap into everything from music to architecture to dance.

Take a moment when you have one to check it out.

Artists Color Berlin Roads With Guerilla Paint Fun

As if inspired by a BMW car commercial from last year, a group of cyclists in Berlin poured gallons of paint in a busy downtown intersection, instantly creating a larger-than-life street mural. As each car sped through the paint a magical creation of colorful lines appeared. Around the area signs were posted letting the unlikely driver participants in the art class know that the paint can be easily washed off with water. A great example of creative minds at work and a solid reminder that sometimes all we need to do is not only have the idea, but then go for it, and see what fun can happen instead of talking about it

Entire Street Bubble-Wrapped, Man Still Popping To Get Out Of Home

A great example of how a smart, clever idea is all you need to entertain the world. A challenger brand in the insurance industry in the UK — Confused.com — determined that Somerville Road in Worcester had the most accident claims in all of the United Kingdom. The street, nick-named “Accident Avenue,” has around ten claims a year for ten years, which translates to some very bad drivers all living on one street. So, for a little fun and mischief, the company decided to bubble wrap all of the contents on the entire street - cars, sign posts, fire hydrants, mail boxes, garden gnomes, everything. If it was standing still they wrapped it - in an exercise that took 8 men more than 12 hours to complete. Now, the world is seeing through photos zipping around the net, bringing everyone to Somerville Road to be a part of the fun. The whole effort probably cost less than $10,000 to pull-off, yet the company is getting international awareness simply by putting a new twist on some research.

How Can We Make It Better? The entire concept rocks, so no improvements there. I would have loved the fun to be captured on video - can only find photos online and so want to see how they wrapped trees and bushes so well, not to mention the houses. And when I checked out the confused.com website I couldn’t find any connection to the bubble wrapped street. It would have been nice to drive people both ways to be a part of the bubble wrap madness. And would have loved to the bubble wrap bandits to have done something special for the person(s) on the street that have been in the most accidents, that would have been a nice twist to the story. All in all, a solid effort and a cheap and cheerful way to get attention for the company. This idea definitely popped on the world stage nicely (I couldn’t resist). Bravo Confused!

Red Bull Builds Dirt Bike Jumps on Barge, Floats in San Francisco Bay

Anyone who’s read my blog knows I have a few brand favorites - brands that really know when to entertain people and do it in a way that gets people talking and resonates so well with the audience they are trying to reach. So you won’t be surprised that today’s fun is all about Red Bull. (And check out one of my previous posts on the Bull here.)Red Bull, being Red Bull, has obviously done an incredible job positioning itself as the cool brand involved in extreme things. Thus, they must get a ton of extreme sponsorship opportunities. But, beyond the association with cool events that are made possible with a sponsorship, the brand knows how to add the Red Bull twist to things that made them quite incredible. Case in point: the 10th anniversary of the New World Disorder film “Dust & Bones” - a film series created for the past 10 years as part of the Interbike tradeshow in Vegas.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary Red Bull developed the “Red Bull Stumps, Clumps and Jumps” tour - bringing some of the world’s best free-ride mountain bikers to four cities for some extreme mountain biking. But that wasn’t enough. To add some Red Bull magic the creative firepower turned a normal (is there a normal one) barge into an monstrous dirt course - and then floated it in the San Francisco Bay to get some amazing background shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge and Alcaraz. But wait, that’s not all - the barge was guided to just outside a baseball game at AT&T Park and reached tens of thousands of fans with some amazing aerial acrobats and tricks.So, like always, how can we make it better? A tough one, because I do love this one, but just for fun … where is the “making of” video of the barge and building of the ramps - everyone loves that stuff. And hoping there was some competition for one lucky, local rider to be invited to join the pros on the barge. Even better, would have loved some type of on-site challenge for bikers to come and do the longest bounce-on-one-wheel to win the change to be on the barge (or something like that). And hope the ramps were lit and there was some type of night, jump and lights show.

OK, I know I’m stretching a bit on how to make it better so I’ll stop. This is simply a great idea that provides a shining example of how to take a basic sponsorship and turn it into something amazing and buzz-generating. Now, take a few minutes to watch the video of all of the action. http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Video/Stumps,-Clumps-and-Jumps-021242782389360?p=1242745960051

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Comedian Visits 100 Mayors In 30 Days, Working For Magic Keys

Ever since Mark Malkoff lived in an Ikea store in New Jersey last year I’ve been a big fan. His brain is curious magic to the max - a mind that always seems to be thinking of the next great social experiment. So when I heard he was starting a new adventure I was obviously very excited. Mark’s brain zeroed in on a tradition in the US to give symbolic keys to celebs/athletes/famous people - keys that don’t really open anything but keys nonetheless. Probably way back when the keys opened a gate or something into a city but now they are just shiny metal key-shaped things of all sizes.Now, it seems as if Mark thought it would be fun to see how many keys he could get from mayors on the East coast of the US in a four week period - and actually is targeting 100 keys — that’s about 3 keys a day. He’s doing some type of community in exchange for each key which add another layer of laughter and great content for Mark - like washing police cars and cleaning up after horses (somebody has to do it).

So, to get all of these keys he needs some wheels - and got the gang at Ford to hand over the keys (he’s full of keys) to a new Ford Fusion Hybrid. As with his other shenanigans (i just love using that word) Mark’s efforts will be social media supercharged - with a Twitter account following the action, a website with the campaign overview, a Facebook page tracking all of the fun, a Flickr account with photos of keys/mayors and lots of video on a YouTube channel.So far he’s up to 30 keys in the first 8 days of the experiment - so setting a blistering pace to achieve his goal. His videos and photos thus far are hysterical and provide just the right amount of content to keep people entertained and laughing along the way. And obviously Ford should be loving the fun too - their product is naturally in most of the videos and the brand itself is aligned with a hysterical guy doing good, having fun and overall adding a nice bit of sparkle to the Ford personality.

How Can We Make It Better? This is a hard one as this campaign truly rocks - a nice, simple idea; a natural curiosity about how easy is it to get these keys; a short-time frame to keep us interested; social media connecting it all together; love it! How about some type of “give Mark a key” competition where people who find him can give him a key and be entered to win the car? Would love to see some type of large ring on the outside of the car that holds all of the keys. Maybe some local radio station DJs riding along with him in their towns and doing some live interviews with Mark and the Mayors?It’s fun to think of some add-ons but again, we love your work Mark. (And for those of you who are feeling the “Mark Rocks” bug, be sure to check out www.171starbucks.com which tracks his journey purchasing coffee at all 171 Starbucks locations in Manhattan in one day; or www.marklivesinikea.com showing the fun he had living in an IKEA store for a week; and of course his most recent Guinness World Record achievement by staying on an AirTran plane for 30 days found at www.markonairtran.com.

Social Experiment: What It Takes To Get People To Take The Stairs Vs Escalator

I’m a new big fan of the “fun theory.” It’s an easy theory to learn - getting people to do something simply by making it fun. A friend of mine told me about it and I was thrilled to find it today and to view some great social experiments proving this theory.

First up - take a look at this video that makes throwing stuff in a garbage bin lots of fun (with a fun sound effect):

Then see how people are coaxed in to taking the stairs with another very cool sound-effect action in place:

It’s not surprising to find out that the fun theory is an initiative by VW, seems to exactly fit with their brand and a great way to reinforce that reputation and VW qwirkyness. Definitely has me inspired to think of what I’d do to something that needs a bolt of fun. And a great example of a brand in action that isn’t trying to do any type of selling (no “buy our cars here” anywhere), just having fun and entertaining people, building relationships for a car purchase (in this case) down the line. Go VW!

L.A. Gang Members Making Cookies & Salsa with Homeboy Bakery, Homegirl Cafe

Great article from The Los Angeles Times on how gang members in LA are finding new pathways off the streets through a very cool job training program. Through Homeboy Bakery and Homegirl Cafe people are learning to create products and commercialize them. A solid example of creative thinking in action that really does some good.

Hikers Stay Awake For 3+Days in Sleepless Retail Competition

Insights Make Everyone Smarter - and help campaigns catch on fire. Today’s case in point: a Swedish outdoor retailer called “Playground” that grounded their effort around one insight, putting it to the test and achieving major results in the process. The insight: hiking makes people healthier and more alert (from the Swedish Health Council). Thus, if hiking makes you more alert, how long could avid hikers stay awake? This formed the foundation for the posse at Playground to develop a campaign that would drive in-store traffic as well as launch the companies new e-commerce site - and the “Sleepless in Playground” movement was born. The company hired four hiker athletes and gave them two missions - sell products and stay awake as long as they could.

The company set-up a website which had some amazing features - heart rate monitor to see which hiker is drowsy, clock counting time each has been awake, a feed of each hikers Twitter comments, a pedometer to track real-time activity and used Bambuser running on iPhones to see the hikers in action. And the company had a few twists - the first one, they were open 24 hours (as obviously there were some awake hikers around ready to serve) and the really great one - people bought equipment from the hiker they thought would stay awake the longest, getting a full refund of their purchase if they pick the right one.Of course they received a ton of media coverage - trying to beat the world record of staying awake for 11 days - and ultimately the winner was up straight for just over 3 days. Watch the video case study to see it all in action, and to check out some amazing stats showing the success of the campaign (i.e., huge traffic to retail store and online, social media buzz and more). A great example of a campaign built on a solid insight that made the creative part so much easier and focused, definitely one not to yawn about (couldn’t resist).

Monster Drawings Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

I thought on a Friday it would be fun to share a little brainstorm warm-up technique that has become a big favorite down under - we call it monster madness. It’s a little fun we’ll have before we start tackling a big challenge, a way to let our brain stop thinking about whatever drama we were tackling before and get to a fun and happier place to then tackle the challenge at hand. These aren’t just “draw a monster” works of art; there is much more to it than that. Here’s how it works:

Get paired up in groups of two people
Everyone gets a big 11x17 (A3) piece of paper and two markers/texters
The twist - both people are drawing the monster and draw at the same time
Once both people put their marker on the piece of paper they can’t lift it up until they are done drawing
So you must talk to your partner to see who is going to do the top or the bottom, the left or the right, the arms or the legs, etc.
Again, you can’t take your marker off the page until you are done - so some re-tracing may be needed
Once you are done you can take your marker off the page and then write his/her/it’s name and what makes him/her/it scary

It’s a lot of fun and a great way to get your brain ready to think of tomorrow’s next big idea.